Scotland

‘Dear transphobes, we have a phobia of your behaviour…Yours, Scotland’. That was just one of Police Scotland’s ‘Letters from Scotland’ campaign posters that started appearing across Scotland five years ago. Misogynists, racists and religious bigots were warned by the chief constable Sir Iain Livingstone, who fronted the campaign, that they’d be dealt with the full force of the law. So it is more than a little ironic that, according to Sir Iain himself, the haters have been hiding in plain sight in the ranks of his own force. ‘Police Scotland is institutionally racist and discriminatory,’ Sir Iain announced today to the Scottish Police Authority. It is also institutionally sexist and

Any uncertainty about the extent of the damage inflicted on the SNP by the criminal investigation into party finances can be safely disregarded. An extensive poll by YouGov suggests that those scenes of a police forensics tent outside Nicola  Sturgeon’s Glasgow home, and the arrest of her husband, the SNP chief executive, Peter Murrell, have done lasting damage in the SNP heartland.  According to this survey of 3,500 Scots, conducted in April and May, the Nationalists stand to lose 21 of their 48 MPs in the next general election – including nearly all their Glasgow seats. Labour would return 24 seats across Scotland, up from only one. This could be enough to

These days, it would be news if the Scottish nationalists were actually getting along. The latest row today is part of an unfolding scandal about former SNP North Lanarkshire Council leader, alleged ‘sex pest’ Jordan Linden, who quit his position in July after accusations emerged that he had groped and assaulted a teenager at a Dundee Pride afterparty. Eight former SNP councillors were disciplined by the SNP earlier this month for highlighting their concerns that accusations of Linden’s behaviour hadn’t been investigated properly. Two were expelled from the party, four were suspended, one received a written warning and another is still yet to receive a punishment after leaving the meeting

Junior doctors in Scotland have been offered a 6.5 per cent pay rise for this coming year after voting in favour of industrial action over a fortnight ago. Scotland’s health secretary Michael Matheson says he is ‘delighted’ to have reached an agreement with BMA Scotland, but doctors across the country are less enthusiastic.  In Scotland, 97 per cent of the junior doctors who voted in the BMA’s ballot did so in favour of strike action, with a high turnout of 71 per cent. They are looking for full pay restoration, which amounts to a 23.5 per cent pay increase above inflation, or an uplift of just under 35 per cent

Ash Regan came third place in the SNP’s leadership contest, but the party’s ‘rebel’ candidate is still fighting hard for her policies – and yesterday she saw a glimmer of success. The SNP has announced that on 24 June it will hold an ‘independence convention’ to take the place of a de facto referendum conference planned by former first minister Nicola Sturgeon. Though she only received 11 per cent of the first preference membership vote, Regan has not sat still since her defeat in March. Last week, she questioned the new (and controversially appointed) minister for independence, Jamie Hepburn, on this in Holyrood: ‘I think that a cohesive, vibrant, creative

Another day, another report about the SNP’s behaviour in office. Now, the accused is Education Secretary and former transport minister Jenny Gilruth, who faces claims that she breached the ministerial code. Gilruth is alleged to have deliberately chosen to delay vital rail works – which will cost the taxpayer around £1 million– to allow her own constituents to travel over the Christmas period. Rules for thee but not for me… The ministerial code states that frontbenchers must not use their position to influence constituency matters, meaning that if an investigation finds Gilruth guilty then she could lose her cabinet post. And opposition leader Douglas Ross was keen to make capital

Humza Yousaf’s regime is not exactly a government of all the talents. There’s Patrick Harvie, the Zero Carbons minister, whose list of achievements is shorter than his fuse. There’s Shona Robison, resurrected five years after taking Scotland to the top of the European health league for, er, drug deaths. And then there’s the First Minister himself, the reverse Macavity who finds himself at the centre of every scandal. But amid this galaxy of mediocrity, one star shines brighter than the rest: Lorna Slater, the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity. Slater has managed to distinguish herself in her 21 months in office through her special blend of personal

In an extraordinary admission this week, the Scottish government has vowed to continue funding the SNP’s ferries fiasco — despite accepting it would be cheaper to scrap the second vessel and commission a new one from scratch.  Economy secretary Neil Gray said a review had found that finishing the second boat, known as Hull 802, does not represent value for money. What’s the background? The Scottish government commissioned two new vessels to serve on Scotland’s west coast in 2015. None have been delivered by the now nationalised Glasgow shipyard that won the contract, while funding for the yard has become something of a financial blackhole for taxpayers. Meanwhile Scottish islanders have at

Nicola Sturgeon’s sheer brass neck never fails to amaze. A politician whose party is under police investigation, and whose husband has recently been arrested, is hardly best placed to start talking about scrapping juries in criminal trials. It’s a bit like Boris Johnson, at the height of partygate, speculating about the breaking up of the Metropolitan Police. Sturgeon’s first venture into policy advice since her resignation came in a column in the Guardian supporting First Minister Humza Yousaf’s proposed Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. This bill, which she sponsored before she resigned in February, calls for a trial of judge-only specialist courts for sexual offences. The right to

It’s not the SNP’s year is it? Just when the nationalists thought they could catch a break after the chaos of recent months, fresh revelations have been published about the infamous police raid on Nicola Sturgeon’s house. It turns out that Police Scotland put in their requests for a search warrant of the Sturgeon-Murrell property midway through the leadership contest on 20 March. But officers were left waiting for another two weeks until they got the green light on 3 April — seven days after the contest had ended. Talk about convenient timing for establishment candidate Humza Yousaf. Had those scenes of the blue forensic tent been engrained in voters’

The SNP has announced that if the next general election results in a hung parliament it will, as power brokers, ‘undo Brexit as far as possible’. Alyn Smyth, the SNP’s EU accession spokesperson, said his party would demand the UK has a close relationship with Brussels in any negotiations with a minority Labour government. There might be a few titters at this and jokes about signing cheques that can’t be cashed from a scandal-beset party whose relevance and even long-term viability is in serious doubt. But the SNP clearly think this is a winning strategy that can arrest their decline and boost their chances. Whether it truly is, and whether

The scandalous debacle of Scotland’s ferries fiasco has rumbled on for some time. It is almost a decade since Nicola Sturgeon announced the takeover of the Ferguson Marine shipyard by the Clyde Blowers billionaire, Jim McColl. He was the preferred bidder to build two new dual-fuel car ferries for the state owned CalMac island ferry service. They never materialised. The ferries saga has been the longest-running procurement scandal since the SNP entered government in 2007. Now, First Minister Humza Yousaf, who was transport secretary when things started to go wrong in 2018, thinks he has finally hit on a solution: privatising the beleaguered shipyard on the Clyde. But there’s a snag: one of Scotland’s

What is it with Humza Yousaf? Scotland’s First Minister has plenty on his plate: police are investigating the SNP’s financial affairs, feminists are pushing back against his plans for gender recognition reform and now lawyers are boycotting the pilot scheme for jury-less rape trials that he has vocally championed. At some point, this stops being simple misfortune and instead suggests serious political miscalculation. Criticism of the Scottish government’s plans to try rape cases without a jury has been building. Now, with at least seven legal bodies having voted to reject the proposed changes to court proceedings, a near unanimous boycott looks likely to render the pilot scheme unworkable. Good. From